Supporting Windows

Hi everyone. I'm new to appdeploy, and this is my first post. Hopefully it's a useful one.

As mentioned by JSaylor, Windows7 creates two partitions, one small system partition which is hidden from the OS, and a larger primary partition where the files live.

This means in your initial partition you need to create a small (I use 200Meg) partition in addition to your primary partition assign it a drive letter and mark the small partition as active.
You then copy down the image to the second partition as your would normally.

Once the copy is done, but before you reboot, run the following command from command line in your second partition (where your image has been copied to).
bcdboot c:\windows /s s: (Where s: is your 200Meg system partition, and c:\windows is where your unpacked windows image lives.)

Here is the diskpart script we use to prepare our hard drives for Win 7 (re)image. Very important to note that our active partition is the system one, and not the C:


Select disk 0
Clean
Create partition primary size = 200
Select partition 1
Active
Format fs=ntfs label=”system”
Assign letter = s
Create partition primary
Select partition 2
Format fs=ntfs label=”<Name of Machine>” quick
Assign letter = c
Exit

Then deploy the image to c: drive (we use imagex)

Imagex /apply <location of image> 1 c:


Then run:

C: (cursor will change to c: )
Bcdboot c:\windows /s s:
exit (reboots machine)


When you reboot the S: drive will disappear and the system will boot in its merry way.

Hope this helps.

Hi everyone. I'm new to appdeploy, and this is my first post. Hopefully it's a useful one.

As mentioned by JSaylor, Windows7 creates two partitions, one small system partition which is hidden from the OS, and a larger primary partition where the files live.

This means in your initial partition you need to create a small (I use 200Meg) partition in addition to your primary partition assign it a drive letter and mark the small partition as active.
You then copy down the image to the second partition as your would normally.

Once the copy is done, but before you reboot, run the following command from command line in your second partition (where your image has been copied to).
bcdboot c:\windows /s s: (Where s: is your 200Meg system partition, and c:\windows is where your unpacked windows image lives.)

Here is the diskpart script we use to prepare our hard drives for Win 7 (re)image. Very important to note that our active partition is the system one, and not the C:


Select disk 0
Clean
Create partition primary size = 200
Select partition 1
Active
Format fs=ntfs label=”system”
Assign letter = s
Create partition primary
Select partition 2
Format fs=ntfs label=”<Name of Machine>” quick
Assign letter = c
Exit

Then deploy the image to c: drive (we use imagex)

Imagex /apply <location of image> 1 c:


Then run:

C: (cursor will change to c: )
Bcdboot c:\windows /s s:
exit (reboots machine)


When you reboot the S: drive will disappear and the system will boot in its merry way.

Hope this helps.

More on this. I popped in the Windows 7 CD and ran the "repair". It said problems were found and they would be fixed. When it was done I rebooted and I get the exact same error. So how do you use WinPE to appy Windows 7 images and not see this error?

How are you applying the image?

I've found the need to format the target drive first then apply using imagex /apply n:\image.wim 1 c:

Yes, I noticed the same thing. This is what I have done

I boot up off of my USB drive. I get to the CMD window that has X:\windows\system32.
I have to run diskpart and format the drive. I have tried with a QUICK and standard format (both to NTFS). The format works.
Then I do a net use to a server where my .WIM file is.
Then I run my imagex /apply command. The image does down and it takes about 5 minutes.
Then I reboot and I see the same error: BOOTMGR is missing


Smason, do you have a doc you email on the exact steps you took to image Vista/Window 7 onto a PC?

mhsl808@yahoo.com

Apparently we are in the same boat. I don't even have to write my issues coz I am facing the EXACT SAME problem deploying Win 7 image in command line.

Well, this is super late, but I might as well post this here for anybody else searching the vast internets for a solution to this problem:

Windows 7 creates a second very small, very hidden partition, presumably to support bitlocker and some other advanced boot features. When you pull an image of a machine with imagex, you're only pulling a single partition, the one with all of the data you want captured. When windows goes to boot after you lay that image back down on a fresh system, it won't be able to find the second partition, and will fail horribly at that point.

If you sysprep your machine (this may require the /oobe switch in particular, though I haven't tested it without,) this issue doesn't usually occur, because the system will create that second partition as a manner of course when doing its first setup sysprep activities. So, you have two choices: Full sysprep when you grab an image off of a machine (which is not always possible if you're using imagex to capture current user boxes just to swap a hard drive,) or you can use your partition tool of choice and only wipe the active partition, not the entire drive. Most diskpart guides, for instance, will have you use

Select disk 0
Clean

in your script to wipe the entire disk, when instead you would want to do something like:

select disk 0
select partition 2
delete partition

This will only work if you're dropping the image onto a machine that already had windows 7. You'd think that microsoft would have planned for multiple partitioning with imagex when its own operating system requires it!

Use Daemon Tools to create your VHD. It's very easy to use and I've never noticed any "disappearing" after a reboot. It has a lot of nice features built in that you won't find in diskpart. It's also free.[/align] you can easily find it with a search or go to: http://www.techmixer.com/daemon-tools-lite-free-virtual-drive-software/ to read more. There is a download link on the page.[/align]

This is a very common issue.
If you are still facing the issue. please mail me.